


True Forms in the Stars

by Aethelflaed, Larkaidikalikani



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Also contains good stuff, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Has Many Eyes (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley in Love (Good Omens), Aziraphale's True Form (Good Omens), Backstory, Body Horror, Burning alive, Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cherub Aziraphale (Good Omens), Comfort, Crowley Created the Stars (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Outer Space (Good Omens), Crowley's True Form (Good Omens), Dismemberment, Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Falling In Love, Fear of Abandonment, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Holding Hands, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Loneliness, Loss of Empathic Link, Love Confessions, M/M, Nightmares, Ok enough of the content warnings, Outer Space, Physical Abuse, Post-Canon, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Seraph Crowley (Good Omens), Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Stars, Trauma, Whump, loss of senses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29405946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelflaed/pseuds/Aethelflaed, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larkaidikalikani/pseuds/Larkaidikalikani
Summary: Months after the Apocalypse, Aziraphale and Crowley are slowly working their way towards their happy ending. But a series of nightmares remind them of pains long buried, which can no longer be ignored. If there is to be any hope for a better future, they must first confront the scars of their past.--Written for the Do-It-With-Style Events Reverse Bang, inspired by Larkaidikalikani's art!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 119
Collections: Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang





	True Forms in the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: This fic contains violent and traumatic injury related to Falling and to angelic punishments. This includes burning, dismemberment and body horror, as well as Emotional manipulation and abuse (particularly related to abandonment and loneliness), loss of senses, and the creation and loss of empathic links. It gets intense, but I promise a soft ending.
> 
> This fic also contains true forms, including references to multiple eyes, multiple heads, and extreme size differences.

_Aziraphale took Crowley’s hands in his. “Are you ready?”_

_“No.”_

_His eyes darted up, trying to meet Crowley’s, but once again the demon had turned away, jaw tight, rocking back on his heels. “I thought—”_

_“No, just – just...hold on…”_

_Crowley pulled his hands free and shook them, rubbing at the back of his neck as he walked away, circling the entire bookshop in a few long, quick steps. Aziraphale could almost feel the nervous energy radiating off him._

_“Would you be more comfortable sitting down? Or if we returned to your flat? Or—”_

_“I don’t think I’m going to be comfortable_ anywhere.” _He raked long fingers through bright red hair, briefly piling it all onto his head before letting it tumble loose around his ears again. “What if it all goes wrong?”_

_The angel pressed his lips together, forcing down his own anxiety. Crowley needed him now, his strength, his support. Fortunately, Aziraphale had a lot of experience burying his doubts, presenting a confidence he didn’t feel._

_“Of course it won’t,” Azirpahale chided gently, stepping up to Crowley, reaching for his hand. “I’ll be there, right beside you.” But Crowley just shook his head, turning further away. “Look at me, Crowley. Tell me what you’re afraid of. Tell me what you think might go wrong.”_

_“Everything!” Crowley stumbled back, pulling away, to stand in the center of the shop again. The panic was back in his eyes, wide and golden, irises expanding as if to devour the sclera. It wasn’t quite fear, nor pain, nor uncertainty that filled them, but some combination of the three, perhaps something greater, too. He’d be reaching for his glasses in a moment._

_This time, Aziraphale moved more slowly, closing the distance, resting just a few fingers lightly by Crowley’s elbow. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have...we don’t have to do this tonight.”_

_Crowley lifted his head to stare through the glass dome of the shop at the stars: miraculously bright, shining like diamonds, like beacons in the black night. He ached, and Aziraphale’s heart ached to see it._

_“I don’t…” Crowley cleared his throat. “I don’t think I can wait much longer.”_

_Aziraphale slid his hand down to meet Crowley’s, lacing their fingers together, and squeezed._

_\--_

The dreams started shortly after the failed Apocalypse.

Just glimpses of the stars at first, a sense of drifting through them as he once had, so many eons ago that Crowley had all but forgotten.

But each night the dreams grew more vivid.

In his dreams he could see the stars, brilliant lights burning in the aether, inner fires swirling and pulsing like a storm. They sang to each other, they sang to their Starmaker, and Crowley’s heart sang back.

He dreamt of racing through them in his true form, a blazing streak of light lined with wings of fire, long body swirling in his wake like the tail of a comet, like fiery hair caught in the wind. Arcing around planets, setting their atmospheres to swirl and dance. Trailing his fingers through nebulae, creating columns a hundred light years long. Cupping the stars in his hands to breathe life into them, guiding them through their endless dance, their eternal journey.

“So...you’re remembering your time in Heaven.” Aziraphale sat back in his armchair, cup of tea still halfway to his lips. He hadn’t taken a sip in so long that Crowley was sure the angel had forgotten it was there; but the steam still curled past his face, like a veil, a gauzy curtain separating angel and demon.

Crowley looked away, frowning into his own cup of coffee, watching the cream create a bright spiral against the dark background.

He hadn’t wanted to say anything. For months, he’d kept it a secret.

Beautiful months, free of demands and pressure and fear. Days spent on long drives and longer walks, evenings filled with arguments and laughter, sipping wine and speaking of everything and nothing, awash with the simple joy of being together. Sometimes Aziraphale would slide onto the sofa beside him, and more than once Crowley had taken his hand, or rested an arm across his shoulders.

Nearly every night now, Crowley fell asleep on that sofa, drifting off to the sound of angelic humming from amongst the shelves, or the feel of soft fingers brushing through his hair.

Slowly, bit by bit, they broke down walls, building something better in their place.

But as the walls came down, things were revealed. Memories. Emotions. Thoughts perhaps better left unthought.

Crowley woke from his dream every morning distressed, panicked, sometimes crying out, or scrambling to grab at pillows, blankets, anything nearby. And Aziraphale hadn’t failed to notice.

“Not exactly,” Crowley finally conceded. “I’m not... _building_ the stars in my dreams. It’s more like I’m...tending them.” He downed the entire cup of coffee in one gulp, feeling it burn down his throat. Considered miracling up another.

“I’m not sure I follow. Surely it’s the same thing.”

“Nnh. Not really, it’s…” It was something he’d never spoken of, had never even considered explaining to another; and now that he had to, Crowley found he didn’t know what to say. Some things could only be _felt,_ not spoken. “I guess it’s two parts of the same thing, but different. During Creation we…made things, put elements together and…” he waved his arms vaguely. “We _created,_ alright? That’s the job I _had._ But afterwards… Someone had to watch over the stars. Take care of them. Help them continue to grow.”

“Like a gardener.”

Nodding, Crowley refilled his cup, this time adding something stronger than cream and sugar to the coffee. “That’s what I dream about. The job I was _supposed to_ have. After Creation. If I’d never Rebelled.”

“Tending the stars,” Aziraphale mused, finally setting his cup and saucer onto the desk. He leaned forward _–_ stiffly, as he sometimes did when he’d sat still for too long _–_ and rested his hands on his knees, carefully thinking over his next words.

They’d been circling the topic for weeks now, Aziraphale never quite asking a question, Crowley refusing to give any straight answers. A quiet, polite contest of wills that had ended abruptly when Crowley broke first. Since when was Aziraphale the patient one? When had he learned to keep his eyes so neutral? Every gesture made with such care, as if afraid to scare Crowley off.

Well, he had reason enough. Crowley’s whole body seemed to vibrate with energy, ready to run at any moment. Crowley didn’t know how telling Aziraphale was supposed to help, but if something didn’t change soon…

The angel tapped a finger against his own knee, thinking it all over. “The entire galaxy, you say. That’s...quite a large estate.”

“I guess.” Crowley squirmed in his seat.

“You must have been very important, to be granted such responsibility.”

“Who cares?” Crowley bit off the rest of his angry retort, sprawling back on the sofa, putting more space between them. His head rapped against the bookshelf behind him as he tilted it back, staring at the ceiling. “Didn’t count for shit, once I started asking questions.”

“They punished you.”

“Is that news?” snapped the Fallen. He could almost hear the voices, raised in argument. Feel the hands of Michael’s warriors, dragging him off to—

Fuck. There was a reason he never talked about this.

“They isolated me,” he went on, once his voice was under control. “From the other Starmakers. Pretty early on, long before there was any talk of...Exile or Rebellion. Said they didn’t want me giving the others _ideas.”_ He closed his eyes, trying to remember the thin, clear music of the spheres. “They thought I’d be more obedient if they took away my stars. Just gave me more time to think, really.”

“I…see.” A long pause, silence broken only by the weight of a thousand books slowly settling onto their shelves. “Then...you’ve been alone for a very long time.” Crowley shrugged. In an even softer voice, Aziraphale asked: “Are you still alone in your dreams?”

“No.” His memories turned away from reality, and Crowley’s heart sped up in his chest. “No, I’m not…”

\--

_“Oh, my word!” Aziraphale’s voice reverberated across Crowley’s skin, sank deep into muscle, flitted around his mind like a cloud of fireflies. Crowley twisted, weaving his body between the stars of a binary system, letting the wings brush through solar flares, sending flashes of light swirling across the star system._

_He smiled down at the Principality cupped in his hand, golden body glowing in a faint reflection of starlight._

_The two wings Aziraphale wore down his back were shorter and broader than the ones he wore on Earth, more like feathered butterfly wings than those of a swan. More short wings stretched from wrist to elbow, and a feathery crown circled his brow in place of eyes and ears, marking him as a Principality. Two interlocking halos surrounded Aziraphale’s head, slowly turning, dozens of eyes in every shape and color gazing in wonder across Creation._

_“Can you hear the music?” Crowley asked, twisting away through the immense void between one star and the next. “It’s everywhere, even all the way out here.”_

_The starsong wasn’t just something you heard, it was something you felt and saw, a symphony of heat and microwave radiation and stellar winds, things only the highest choirs of angels were able to perceive. So Crowley sang as he flew, shifting his colors, translating the song for Aziraphale._

_“It sounds like something Bach would write,” the angel laughed, hands gripping Crowley’s thumb like the mast of a ship. “Sebastian, I mean, or possibly—”_

_Crowley bent his long head closer, singing more insistently, breath ruffling Aziraphale’s feathers. The Principality laughed again, resting a hand on Crowley’s cheek and trying to sing along. He could feel Aziraphale’s joy and wonder surging through his veins._

_“There!” Crowley’s deep voice reverberated between the stars, even as his chest continued to hum in harmony with them. “It’s another of mine!” He pointed at the nebula, greens and yellows and reds stretching across a quarter of the sky. “Let me show you.”_

_He turned his wings, arching around the nearest star, dragging his fingers through the corona, gathering just a pinch of brilliant starfire._

_“I can’t believe you made all this,” Aziraphale said breathlessly, trying to take in the scope of it all, the forest of clouds that could swallow entire systems._

_“Well, I had a_ little _help,” Crowley conceded, offering the starfire. Aziraphale accepted it in a flutter of wings, a miniature sun almost too big for him to carry, and cradled it against his chest._

_Crowley pulled the Principality closer, cradling him in much the same way – feeling again the delicate touch of one hand wrapped around his finger – then tucked his many wings and dove, the glowing beauty of the galaxy shooting past on either side. When Aziraphale gasped, it sent a thrill of pleasure straight to Crowley’s heart._

_Together they spun through the nebula, columns of gas and stellar nurseries on either side. They raced against comets, skimmed over gas giants, darted from one constellation to the next._

_When the black hole at the center of it all loomed close, Crowley snapped open a pair of wings – and another – and another, catching the surge of radiation, riding it up, up, up in slow circles until the entire Milky Way was laid out below them, until the emptiness around them was lit by the glow of a thousand galaxies._

_“Oh, Crowley,” sighed the angel, face illuminated by the ball of starfire like frosted glass over a candle. “It’s all so...beautiful.”_

_“Yeah.” He lifted Aziraphale so that his many eyes could take it all in, but Crowley’s own gaze never left his smile. “It’s all yours, Angel. Anywhere you want to go.”_

_\--_

“That sounds...lovely,” sighed Aziraphale from across the room.

“Shut up.” Crowley glared at a small potted plant next to the register, which sheepishly straightened its stem. “Sounds...cheesy. Stupid. Like something out of a romance movie, and not even one of the _good_ ones with clever writing.”

“Well, yes. It does.” The sofa shifted under a new weight, and two soft hands enveloped Crowley’s right, drawing it to rest on Aziraphale’s knee. “It also sounds _lovely.”_

Crowley grunted. His eyes had made their way from the ceiling to the floor, and now he studied how the faded carpet contrasted with the rich brown boards.

The past few months, they’d been able to communicate openly, freely, like never before. They’d been able to be honest with each other, gently circling around the things they really wanted to say, finding the words a few at a time. There was no rush. They had eternity.

But being honest with Aziraphale opened Crowley to being honest with himself, in ways he’d never imagined, in ways he’d come to regret.

He was consumed by emotions.

Crowley always presented himself as superficial, a demon who liked things fast and fresh and cool, jumping from one fashion to the next. It was easier to survive if everyone assumed there was nothing below the surface, no hidden plans or desires that might cause trouble for his superiors. It was easier to live with himself if he pretended not to have hidden depths, that his future contained no hopes, that his past was free of scars.

But Crowley had always felt deeply. And he could no longer deny who he was.

He’d lost all control of them, the complex emotions that, finally released from their cages, threatened to swallow him whole. Fears that couldn’t be contained by words. Losses too deep for him to fully grasp. And a millennia-long desire that moved out of the realm of language entirely.

He wondered how much Aziraphale had suspected. He’d honestly expected the angel to say something first, months ago, release a torrent of emotions in a few carefully selected words. Had something held him back? Or had he just been unsure of Crowley’s feelings?

Well, he’d have a pretty good picture of things after hearing the dream. Crowley stared at the floor ahead of him, heat rising in his face, knowing it was coming, waiting for Aziraphale to ask, to question, to demand Crowley cram everything he felt into three little words that would never contain it all…

Instead, Aziraphale squeezed his hand again and gently prodded: “Tell me the rest.”

“What rest? I wake up.” Crowley’s legs had gone tense. He needed to pace, to shake off the feelings bubbling up inside, but he wasn’t willing to relinquish that warm grip just yet. “I snap back to reality. Dream over.” A quick glance to the side, enough to see Aziraphale wasn’t buying it. “That’s all. The end. Nothing to tell.”

“Please.” One hand held Crowley’s steadily while the other gently pressed his shoulder. “I’ve seen how upset you are when you wake.”

“Ngk. I just—” Panic started clawing its way up his throat. “Probably – don’t want to drink your lousy coffee, you think of that?”

“Crowley.”

“S’nothing! You just – that’s how people are when they wake up. Demons, too. It’s, it’s disorienting, is what it is. You should try it sometime instead of – whatever you do all night.”

“Crowley.”

“Mgrf. And especially if I fall off your bloody sofa, happens – all the time, right? Why don’t you get – get something comfortable if you want me here? Crack my head on the floor first thing, that’ll upset someone.”

“Crowley…”

“Stop, just stop!” He leapt to his feet and tried to stalk away, but the back room left nowhere to go. With a huff, Crowley spun around, arms wide. “Fine. You want the truth?”

Aziraphale still sat on the sofa, hands folded on his lap, endlessly patient. “That’s all I want.”

\--

_Crowley held the Principality aloft, so his double wheel of eyes could take in everything, though his own gaze never wavered from that wondrous, wonderful smile. A smile that only grew as Aziraphale’s eyes lowered to look back—_

_Something grabbed Crowley, pulled him down. Violently tore him away from Aziraphale._

_He tumbled away, an uncontrolled fall through the endless, endless nothing of space. Not towards the stars or a distant galaxy. Somehow, he moved in another direction entirely, away from everything, away from reality. His wings flapped uselessly, arms grasping._

_Then the heat started, not his own internal warmth. Something terrifyingly, blisteringly hot, a raging inferno burning with no fuel but Crowley’s body. It tore across his flesh, leaving nothing but ash and char. It ripped his wings from his body, his arms, when he opened his mouth to scream the fires filled him, until he burst, torn to pieces—_

_The last thing he saw as he plummeted through the void was Aziraphale’s horrified face hovering somewhere far above him._

_\--_

“You dream of Falling.”

Aziraphale’s eyes had gone wide, his face bloodlessly pale, but his voice stayed even.

“No. Yes. It’s...that’s not how it was. Not really.” Crowley clenched his fists, remembering the fires, the burning, his body and soul reduced to nothing as he plummeted towards Hell. “But...yeah. I dream I Fall again. Almost every night now.”

“Oh, my dear friend…” Aziraphale crossed the room in an instant, throwing his arms around Crowley, drawing him into an embrace. Pulling Crowley’s head down to bury his face in the angel’s soft shoulder. “I am...so sorry.”

Crowley wriggled, trying to break free of Aziraphale’s infuriatingly strong grip. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the embrace – he could get used to that, with a bit of warning next time – but he would _not_ be _pitied._ “Look, it’s fine, Angel. Don’t – don’t make a _thing_ out of it.”

“It is most certainly _not_ ‘fine!’ That sort of pain—”

“Doesn’t matter.” He managed to get himself free, crossing to the center of the shop in three quick steps. Trying to escape that twisting feeling in his gut. “Just dream pain. Doesn’t bother me.”

“I hardly think—”

“It isn’t _real,_ Aziraphale.”

“Real or not, Crowley, it upsets you—”

“Doesn’t.”

“Crowley!”

“It doesn’t! I don’t care about that, it’s—” Crowley clenched his jaw, not wanting to say more. But now the emotions, those overpowering emotions that lurked in his deepest depths, had found words and they pulled themselves out of him, one after the next, escaping into the world. “It’s the _loss._ I can’t stand losing it all!”

Crowley threw his head back, gazing up at the bookshop’s dome. At this time of night, it just reflected the shop’s light back, and anyway the sky beyond it was flooded with the light pollution of nine million people.

A wave of his hand cleared away both.

There they were, the stars, his stars. Jewels of light filling the blackness. Enormous fires, shrunk to mere pinpricks, diminished by the unfathomable distance. Forever beyond the grasp of one who’d Fallen.

They called to him. Never stopped really, but he could feel it now, the starsong, harmonizing through his veins. A little more every day.

One more thing he could no longer ignore.

“In my dream, I have... _everything._ Everything I ever wanted, everything that was ever mine. I feel...complete. And then it’s taken away from me, over and over…”

The carpets hardly rustled under Aziraphale’s steps as he approached, cautiously sliding his arm around Crowley’s waist.

“You don’t know what it’s like.” Crowley wrapped his arm across Aziraphale’s shoulders, drawing his angel closer. “To lose a part of yourself...to have them take away everything you are, leave you to put the pieces back together. It’s...so much worse than pain, and I don’t…” He swallowed, looking away from the stars, away from Aziraphale, studying a particularly dusty corner between two shelves. “I don’t think I can go through that again.”

“You won’t.” Aziraphale’s hand slid up to rest between his shoulder blades, where the wings would sprout in this form. “We’re free, and they won’t _ever_ take anything from you again.” He slid closer, rested his head on Crowley’s shoulder. “I won’t let them,” he said, voice soft but adamant. “I won’t let them.”

How could he explain that it wasn’t that simple? That the stronger the call of the stars, the more keenly he felt their loss, the more precarious their new life felt? It was all jumbled together, past and present and future, and he didn’t know how to shut out the emotions now that he’d let them in. How to go back to pretending it didn’t hurt.

“Would it help if...if you went back? Just for a little while?”

“Yeah, well, I _can’t.”_ Crowley stepped away quickly, in case Aziraphale could somehow sense the rising call within him. “I’m Fallen, remember? Even if I can...go to space, I can’t... _ascend to the Heavens._ Not like I used to. It wouldn’t be the same.”

“But would it _help?”_ Aziraphale pressed on with quiet insistence. “To go there again, like in your dream. Visit the stars as our true selves. See them again, touch them, without having them pulled away. Would that help?”

True self. Crowley hadn’t shed a mortal form since his Fall, though he’d worn a few, human or otherwise. Demons rarely did. It was hard to face the remains of what you once were, to see the sickly, faded light of your own halo. He remembered squirming out of the boiling sulphur, flesh burned away, voice shattered, unable to shut his eyes against the sight of his own twisted body. Broken. Hideous. No, no he didn’t want _that_ again.

But to hear and feel and taste the stars again. The soft curl of plasma against his skin, the whisper of infant stars growing in a nebula, the last ecstatic cry of a supernova. To have all his senses again, to see the background glow of the universe, to feel the gentle brush of another mind against his own. To stand beside Aziraphale as Creation unfolded before them…

“Yeah. If I could...take you to the stars...it would help.” More than Aziraphale could ever comprehend. “But that’s impossible.”

“Perhaps.” Crowley glanced over his shoulder to see Aziraphale, standing in the center of the shop, hands held out before him. “But _I_ can take _you.”_

\--

Aziraphale squeezed Crowley’s hand. He could feel how his demon trembled, the joy of traveling to the stars again lost in wave after wave of anxiety. Well. He could understand _that._

But Aziraphale was willing to try anything, if it would help Crowley.

“Whenever you’re ready, dearest.”

“What if…” Crowley swallowed, lips twisting bitterly. “What if it doesn’t feel the same?”

“It won’t.” Aziraphale stepped closer, lifting his free hand to brush Crowley’s cheek. “You’re different now than you were. Time has changed you, as it’s changed the stars. It will be like...meeting them again for the first time.”

Crowley snorted, a mirthless laugh, his fears still swimming just behind his eyes. “What about us? Will it be like _we’re_ meeting for the first time?”

“No, just…” He tucked a lock of brilliant red hair behind Crowley’s ear. “Just seeing each other in a new light.”

“And if you don’t like what you see?”

“Don’t be absurd.” Aziraphale pulled close, resting his cheek on Crowley’s chest. Turning his face away to hide the fear in his own eyes. “Nothing will ever change the way I feel about you.”

He hoped the reverse was also true. There was no way to do this without raising questions, ones with answers too horrible to contemplate.

_You deserve someone far better than me, Crowley. But I will care for you, for as long as you allow me to._

Crowley’s arms slid up his back, pressing Aziraphale against him, bringing his own cheek to rest among Aziraphale’s white curls.

They stood like that for a long time, together in the light of the stars.

Finally, Crowley stepped back, hands sliding down to hold Aziraphale’s, eyes almost back to normal. He took a deep breath and nodded.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and pictured the world as it was, all four dimensions. He let his angelic senses stretch out, until he could see every speck of dust on the shelves, hear the hum of human nightlife two blocks away, feel the beating of Crowley’s heart in time with his own. He gathered it all close, soaked it in.

Then he took a step, up and out of the mundane four-dimensional world. Out of reality entirely.

With a gentle tug, he pulled Crowley along after him.

\--

As Crowley walked, everything curled away – shelves, dome, even his own body. He didn’t watch it happen, just kept his eyes locked on the only thing that stayed constant: the stars themselves.

No, not constant. They drew closer, larger, streaming down around him, the pitch black of the sky shifting to reds and golds and colors the human eye couldn’t even imagine.

A nebula grew around them, swirling like a storm, impossible clouds blossoming and rolling past. A heartbeat later, everything fell still.

“Seems as good a place to begin as any.” Aziraphale’s voice. He was beside Crowley, but the demon’s eyes were stuck, in thrall to the sight ahead.

Two enormous blue stars spun around each other, light reflecting off the clouds on every side. The dimmer of the two would still outshine the Earth’s sun as all the glory of Heaven outshone a candle, but the brighter was five times as large again, flickering in flashes of blue and indigo and ultraviolet. The stars were surrounded by two expanding clouds, the aftermath of the first of many explosions Crowley had calculated for them, eons and eons ago.

He recognized them, as a human would recognize the faces of their children. _Eta Carinae._ He opened his mouth to call to them.

And choked on his own tongue.

“It’s more beautiful than I imagined,” Aziraphale continued, though his voice was strange, distant. “Oh, Crowley, I can hear the song!”

It should be all around them, the duet of the stars in counterpoint to the surrounding nebula. He felt it pulling at his veins, but he couldn’t hear it.

He couldn’t _hear_ the stars.

_No. No!_ Crowley tried to shout, but all that emerged was a wretched, strangled noise. He tried to reach out to the stars, but he had no arms, no limbs, the remnants of his wings flailing in the void, they couldn’t hold him up, he was _falling—_

Somewhere immeasurably far away, too far to hear – Aziraphale’s voice. Fading. Was he leaving? Crowley spun around, trying to see, but his vision was failing, everything lost in a blue-white mist. Soon he couldn’t even see the glow of the nearby stars.

Something brushed his face, running along his jaw, his broken jaw, loose and useless, tongue barely able to form words, no sensation through his skin, just icy, dull numbness…

He twisted and writhed, managing to catch sight of his long body, flesh decaying and cracking all down his length. Dead. He was dead, his fires extinguished, his body just a rotten shell pulling him down, the smell of it filling his lungs, smothering him.

The stars watched him silently. He would never hear them again, never touch them again, his angel was gone, he was alone, abandoned—

The long, scarred body coiled in on itself, burying him, hiding him away from the pain, from the emotions, from everything, until there was nothing left to feel, nothing left to hurt.

\--

“Crowley! Crowley, what’s wrong? Crowley!”

Aziraphale’s hands scrambled desperately at the being next to him, searching for something to hold, some way to provide comfort.

“Crowley, I have you! I’m right here. Crowley!”

He’d been distracted, yes, but only for a moment. By the wondrous sights and sounds of the universe, the return of his full senses, the strangeness of walking again in his true form after six thousand years. But in that moment something had happened, and now his dearest friend was coiling in on himself, howling in pain.

Aziraphale had tried to prepare himself for the worst, but he couldn't have imagined this. Crowley’s body hung in the aether, some sort of charred exoskeleton, limbs hanging useless, wings pinned down by desiccated flesh. Even the simple coiling movement was stiff, pained, splitting the skin down his body.

_What did they do to you, my darling?_

Did his wounds still hurt after all this time? Stupid angel, he _knew_ that was possible. If he’d stopped thinking about his own pain for a minute, he could have _warned_ Crowley.

Before his eyes, Crowley spun himself into a ball, an impenetrable knot, and stopped moving entirely.

Aziraphale fell to his knees, ignoring the glorious backdrop they floated past. His fingers wriggled against Crowley’s body, scraping down its length, trying to find a gap in the coils, to meet the golden eyes that were the same, whatever form he took. “Please, dear, let me see you. Tell me what’s wrong!”

He found a hand and tried to grasp it, but it broke free, a crumbling, hollow husk.

This was Aziraphale’s fault. He shouldn’t have pried, shouldn’t have pressed, shouldn’t have insisted on this trip, shouldn’t have thought so much about his own fears while dismissing Crowley’s—

A tremor ran through the cold body, a sign of life.

“Crowley, dear, it’s alright. I’m right here. Right here!” He pressed his forehead to the coils, trying to sense heat, movement, anything.

Then he heard it. Felt it, really. A tickle of...something, a thought not his own, running across the back of his mind. A spot that had been silent for six thousand years.

Aziraphale focused, trying to put words to the sensation, projecting a voice onto it until he could hear, thin and faint, running with desperate speed: **“Gone. Gone. Nothing left. Silent. Cold. Numb. Empty. Gone.”**

“Crowley?” Aziraphale shut his eyes, tried to push the words into Crowley’s mind. “Can you hear me?”

**“Aziraphale?”** The panicked stream of words softened slightly, and a second began: **“Angel. Angel. Safe. Warm. Home. Trust. Angel.”** And another: **“Going to leave me. Scared of me. Disgusting. Broken. Worthless.”** And the first, swelling again: **“Gone. Gone. Where is it? Why? Gone.”**

It was too much. Aziraphale pulled back, sucking in a breath, though there was nothing to breathe. Trying to shake the voices from his mind.

“Steady on,” he muttered, once he could hear his own thoughts again. He needed to approach this _carefully._ Bracing himself, Aziraphale leaned in close again. “Crowley, can—”

Dozens of voices rose up to assail him, hundreds, too much noise, a tidal wave of words—

**“Angel! Angel! Come back!”**

**“Gone. Left. Alone. Forever.”**

**“My stars. My stars.”**

**“Don’t need you. Don’t need anyone.”**

**“Don’t leave me!”**

**“Fallen. Worthless. Crawly. Snake.”**

—that swept Aziraphale away again, threatened to drown him. He stumbled back, scrubbing at his eyes.

Was that what it was like inside Crowley’s mind? A thousand voices, clamoring for attention, endless mantras of fear and pain? It seemed impossible; on the outside, he was always so composed, so confident, a study in _coolness._ Even when his anger or anxiety got the better of him, Crowley always kept a firm hand on his emotions—

Emotions?

Ah. Yes. Obvious, really.

Once more, Aziraphale pressed his head to Crowley’s coils. This time, he didn’t try to put words to the sensations. When Crowley’s mind brushed his, he opened himself up to simply _feel_ it.

A deep, hollow, aching loss that stretched back beyond the beginning of time. A swirling, defensive energy, part anger, part fear, circling protectively, ready to strike. A pure, almost childlike delight, buried under layers of pain and betrayal that weighed it down but never marred it. And breaking through the surface, a desperate fluttering fear, like the hand of a drowning man reaching from the water.

Aziraphale grasped it. “Crowley. Dearest.” He smoothed his hands along the dry, crumbling flesh. “I’m here. Don’t be afraid. I’m right here.” Aziraphale tried to project a feeling of comfort, of peace into Crowley’s troubled mind. He set one of his voices to sing, a low, soothing call, while another joined in with high, fluting notes. The last thrummed and purred, matching the rhythm of his hands. **“I’m here. Can you hear me, Crowley? Can you feel me?”**

Finally, a clear voice rose from the confusion of emotions: **“Aziraphale? Are you really back?”** A warm, desperate hope rose up to greet him.

**“Never left. Dreadfully sorry, I’ve never communicated _empathically_ before.” **It was Crowley’s ability, not his, though it seemed to tie loosely to something he’d lost long ago. Empathic bonds were a rare talent, something only a very few angels had been granted, which along with a few other clues, made Aziraphale quite certain—

No. Not important now.

**“Can you tell me what’s wrong, Crowley?”**

**“No stars. Body strange. All wrong. Can’t sing. Can’t fly. Lost. Broken.”** Another wave of emotion, cutting across his senses. Was Aziraphale supposed to have heard that? He doubted Crowley had much control at the moment.

Start simpler. **“Are you hurt, dear?”**

**“No. Just. Mh. Didn’t help. Can’t hear the stars. Can’t touch them. Knew it wouldn’t work.”**

**“I’m sorry. This was my idea.”** He turned his head slightly to watch his fingers scratching at the base of a wing-stub. Flakes of grey ashy skin broke off, floating away. **“I fear I’ve only made things worse.”** They should return to the shop, try to find another solution. Hope that tonight didn’t bring the worst dream yet.

Aziraphale’s fingers picked off another bit of dead skin.

Four pairs of blue eyes opened wide.

**“What? What is it, Angel?”** A ripple went through Crowley’s body. **“Did you find something? See something? Concentrate, I can’t – Chrysalis?”**

**“Yes. Yes! Crowley, you’re a butterfly!”**

**“No…?”**

**“No, obviously not a butterfly. A serpent!”**

**“I...sometimes?”** Confusion, buoyed by a rising optimism, a tiny surge of hope – it was delightful, like bubbles of champagne, or the tickle of a kitten’s fur. Oh, Aziraphale could get used to communicating like this!

**“Yes, but – this form, right now.”** He scrabbled with his nails, scratching at a large, promising-looking patch of skin. **“When you Fell, Crowley, yes it broke you, burned you, but there’s another body underneath. You just need to shed your old form—”**

The patch, larger than Aziraphale’s palm, crumbled, revealing scales, blacker than the depths of space, faintly speckled with blue and white, glowing like distant stars.

**“Oh, Crowley.”** He pressed his fingers to the uncovered flesh, faintly warm and undeniably alive. **“Oh, my love. You’re _beautiful.”_**

\--

The scrape of fingernails around Crowley’s eyes felt so marvelous he could have cried. Thankfully, this body didn’t seem to have any tear ducts, so Aziraphale couldn’t tell.

**“Actually,”** The angel’s voice flitted around his mind in a flurry of amusement, **“I can feel how relieved you are. I might cry myself.”**

**“You were _not_ supposed to hear that,” **Crowley grumbled.

Aziraphale’s laughter rolled down his body in a warm, infectious wave. **“I’m a fast learner.”** His fingers again scratched the space between Crowley’s eyes, starting another pleasant wave. **“Not fast enough, it seems. Your eyes are this milky color, but I can’t see why…”**

**“I’ve gone blue.”** He shared a memory with Aziraphale, of his vision slowly fading as the scales over his eyes loosened. In the mostly-human body he usually wore, his eyes were the only part that still regularly shed. **“Nh. I should have recognized it, but it’s never come on so quickly before.”**

**“Ah. Perhaps something to do with your eyes being the same in every form? But why this and not their original shape?”** His mind tumbled into a quiet rush of words. **“An odd transformation. Do they alter to match the condition of the rest of the form? Some sort of resonance with—”**

**“Focus, Angel.”** Aziraphale’s mind seemed more attuned to words, often lots of words at once. It made for some odd quirks in their communication.

**“Ah. Sorry, dear. Your eye scales are drying and hardening. I believe they’ll soon be in the same condition as the rest of your body, and I can’t see how to get them free.”** The gentle heat of his fingers slid back across Crowley’s head, then vanished. Aziraphale moved down the length of Crowley’s long body again, but his fingers now traced across dead skin. Without vision or hearing, Crowley couldn’t detect him at all. **“There’s so much, Crowley. I don’t know where to begin.”**

Crowley stretched, trying to feel the shape of his new body. He couldn’t detect much except stiffness, heaviness, and a constant dull ache. His head turned sluggishly, his tail was dead weight, his arms were dead, and his wings—

He concentrated. Yes, something _was_ moving.

**“Aziraphale. Do I still have wings?”**

**“Yes. Yes! I saw…”** A moment later, he could feel Aziraphale scratching at what should be the base of his wing. He could feel it – pinned and immobile, but still there. **“Some of them are badly encased in the old skin but...hold on…”**

With a snap of released tension, Crowley felt his wing break free.

He gave it an experimental flap and abruptly found himself tumbling, twisting, directionless, through the void. For a moment he felt completely unfettered, and a laugh started to form deep inside him. **“It works! It doesn’t even hurt. Aziraphale, I need—”** He couldn’t sense the angel’s mind. **“Aziraphale? Aziraphale!”** His head darted this way and that, trying to remember which direction he’d come from, not even sure if he was still moving—

**“Here! Right here, dearest. Goodness you move fast.”** The gentle calm rippled through him, accompanied by the strange music that seemed to follow Aziraphale.

**“Angel!”** Crowley tried to rein in his emotions – a surge of fear and relief and gratitude and a hundred other things he couldn’t name but would surely overwhelm an angel not used to empathic connections.

Aziraphale’s thoughts, however, seemed to be running off again. **“It would appear we can only sense each other while actually touching, though it doesn’t seem to make a difference if I touch your old skin or new. And you can’t hear my real voice. It seems your ears – if you have ears – are in much the same condition as your eyes—”**

**“We can figure this out later,”** Crowley interrupted, an idea already forming. **“I need you to free one more wing, on the other side. Can you?”**

**“Let me see…”**

The second wing took longer, and was much further down Crowley’s body, but soon it was free and he could steer himself, in an unbalanced, limping way, but nevertheless under his own control.

**“What next, Crowley? Another wing? Or should I try your neck again? I managed to work a good-sized piece off…”**

**“It’s taking too long.”** Crowley strained his useless eyes, searching the heavens. **“Which way is the nearest star? Over here?”**

After a pause, the warm hand appeared again, resting on the cleared space of his cheek, guiding his head. **“There. It truly is beautiful, the size, the color, the song. I can’t tell you…”**

With a beat of his wings, Crowley shot towards the star.

**“Crow—!”**

But even with only two wings freed, he moved too fast for Aziraphale to keep up.

Twisting through the heavens, blind and deaf, Crowley began to realize he could still sense something – new senses, things he’d never detected before, not in his old life. He could taste the heat of the approaching star, feel the pull of its gravity, like a current in a stream. He aligned himself easily, tucked his wings and dove.

It was fast approaching now. He could _feel_ its size, its weight, its age, the balance of chemicals waiting to explode. Eta Carinae A.

Solar winds rippled through his feathers. A solar flare curled out, caressing his cheek.

_That’s right. I’m back!_

And he plunged into the warm, welcoming core of the star.

\--

“Crowley! _Crowley!”_ Aziraphale’s voice reverberated through the void, blending with the strange music that he felt more than heard.

Shielding his eyes against the light of the impossibly bright star, he could just make out a long, dark shadow that staggered, shuddered, and dropped like a stone to be swallowed by the fires.

“No!” Azirpahale cried out – a high scream, a low moan, a strangled roar – and tried to follow, but flaring his wings sent a shot of old familiar pain up his back. Even floating through space, it was enough to make him stagger, to force him to pause and carefully stretch before it got worse.

_Not now,_ he thought angrily, rubbing that spot at the base of his wing that always gave him trouble. _Crowley needs me. I don’t have time for this!_

His mind spun, trying to calculate – Crowley would have some resistance to the star’s heat, even if this was an especially powerful one, but he could hardly fly and wouldn’t be able to navigate out without help, perhaps a rope of some kind, but where would one find a rope in the middle of a nebula—

The star dimmed, a shadow passing below its surface—

And a long, slender shape, blacker than the depths of space, burst free, three pairs of wings flicking blue-white fire in every direction.

\--

Crowley passed through the liquid flames in the heart of the star. They burned across him, intolerably hot, enough to melt even an angel’s true form.

But not his.

The old skin crumbled, burned to ash in seconds, but the new form reveled in the heat, absorbed it, thrived in it. For the first time since leaving the bookshop, Crowley felt _energized._

The starsong surrounded him – he couldn’t hear it, but that no longer mattered. It pulsed against his skin, tickled between his scales, vibrated through the whole of his being. It filled his new senses – the shift of magnetic field, the taste of heavy metals formed under pressure, the prickle of atomic fusion.

He could feel the twin star, Eta Carinae B, a gentle tidal pull; and another star beyond that, and another, and another—

It wasn’t new. He’d felt that pull in his veins, every day since August. Before that, too, though he’d denied it for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. The stars, calling him home.

_I’m back,_ he thought, riding the tides of convection up to the photosphere. _They tried to keep me from you, but they failed. And I’ll never let them separate us again._

He was sure the stars rumbled back in agreement.

The scales fell from his eyes as he broke through the chromosphere, emerging in a spout of blue flame. He could see the nebula, impossible shades of red and blue and green. Perhaps not as many shades as he once did, but sight wasn’t everything – he could feel the whole of the Milky Way spin around him.

Crowley tossed the last embers free of his feathers and arced back to see his new body. He could have laughed – what else did he expect? – a black serpent, sleek and smooth, with brilliant red underbelly. All six wings were ebony now, no trace of their original iridescent color, but every feather was healthy and strong and settled exactly in place. A faint red glow – almost lost in the shine of the nearby star – reflected off his scales. His halo, dim and broken but shining with a steady light, hovering over him where it belonged.

He was longer, too: as he darted between the binary stars, skimming across their coronas in a giant figure 8, he tried to guess his length. Large enough to surround an average-sized star in his coils, at least. He couldn’t wait to try.

Once more around the larger star, then Crowley easily broke orbit, turning to search for Aziraphale – and froze when he instead saw a cherub, almost half as tall as he was long, with four faces and brilliant white wings, halo light softly shining in the void.

Three of the heads – bull, hawk, lion – glowed with scatterings of gold more pure than starlight. The bull’s head lowed, tossing its gold-tipped horns when Crowley began to approach, and the lion head ruffled its mane excitedly.

Between them was a human face, without a hint of gold, plain and kind and very familiar, from the curly white hair to the tartan bow tie tucked below the chin.

Crowley circled the cherub wearily, looking for a trick, but when those soft fingers brushed his scales (cool, compared to the heat of the star, but no less pleasant), he knew. He would never forget the feel of that mind.

**“Aziraphale.”** He jerked away before the angel could grasp the tumultuous emotions warring inside him, circling again under the watch of four pairs of blue eyes. The angel tucked in his wings, giving him space, allowing Crowley to process this in his own time. 

When Crowley was ready, he coiled in the air before Aziraphale and allowed him to reach up and stroke his face.

**“It suits you, my dear, it really does.”**

**“Angel. You never said...you’re a _Cherub.”_**

**“I’m not,”** and something dark – pain and fear – churned beneath his placid calmness. **“No more than you’re a Seraph, I should say.”**

Crowley hadn’t thought the word could still hurt him, but it did, like a sword to the heart. **“That was a long time ago.”**

**“Yes.”** Aziraphale stretched his wings again – not the usual four, but two, white as snow...and two feathery stumps that ended abruptly. **“For me as well. Neither of us are who we once were.”** A hint of emotional turmoil, threatening to destroy the calm. **“And, I suppose, we both carry our scars.”**

**“But…”** Crowley looked uncertainly between the two nearest heads, human and bull. **“You never said anything. When? Why?”**

**“Oh – never mind.”** Aziraphale smiled, but it wasn’t the usual, confident grin he showed around Crowley. It was the strained, hesitant one that used to always come out around other angels. He pulled his hands away from Crowley, twisting them in front of him, breaking their connection. “Let’s not talk about it,” Aziraphale continued in his regular voice, which sounded distant, muffled, flat. “This is – it’s a _good_ day, Crowley. We’re back among the stars, you’re _flying._ Let’s go somewhere to celebrate. Anywhere you like.”

No, not when Aziraphale was _hiding_ something from him. Crowley reached out, the tip of his tail brushing across the delicate feathers of Aziraphale’s wing, forming the most tenuous connection to his angel’s mind. What he saw made Crowley pull back, hissing. Four heads lowered in shame as Crowley flared his wings, then shot forward, pressing his head against Aziraphale’s human head. **“Angel! You’re in pain. What happened?”**

“Oh...just an old scar, really. It will pass.” But he mumbled it vocally, still trying to shield his mind.

**“Not just your wing.”** Crowley wrapped his tail loosely around Aziraphale’s arm, just enough connection to be able to communicate, then pulled back and tried to meet any of the eight eyes. They all turned away. **“Something’s _wrong._ What did they do to you?”**

“It hardly matters now.”

**“Of course it matters!”** Crowley tried to reach out with a wing, to circle it around Aziraphale’s middle, but the angel quickly stepped back. **“You have to tell me!”**

“No, I don’t.” Aziraphale adjusted his robes, still managing to look four different directions. “Crowley, I’ve always let you have your secrets. I’ve never pushed you to talk before you were ready. Even when I knew you were distressed. Why can’t you grant me the same courtesy?”

**“Because I’m not—”** Crowley shook his tail free, breaking the connection, and let the thought boil away inside his head. Everything about him that made him _Crowley_ screamed that he needed to take care of Aziraphale. Needed to take away his pain.

He took a breath and nudged his face against Aziraphale’s hand. **“Alright. If you don’t want to talk, just walk away. I’ll show you around the nebula, take you to my favorite constellations. We can forget all about it. I won’t ask again until you’re ready.”** Then he pulled away, coiling himself neatly nearby, and waited.

Aziraphale didn’t move.

“It’s not…” His voice was almost too soft for Crowley to hear, a whisper in the darkness. “This isn’t…” Aziraphale rubbed his hands together, shifting his feet as he floated through space. “I didn’t want...I mean…” He straightened his bow tie, all four heads tipping back in that familiar way. “I...don’t know how to...to put it into words…”

Uncoiling, Crowley moved slowly up to Aziraphale. Carefully, ready to pull back if it was too much, he draped himself across Aziraphale’s shoulders, tucking under four chins, and rested his head against the curve of the angel’s cheek. **“You don’t need to,”** he said, opening his mind as far as it would go, reaching out, inviting Aziraphale deep into his thoughts where their memories could mingle.

And Aziraphale followed, a bundle of racing thoughts, words tripping over themselves now, all composure lost. Crowley surrounded him with a peaceful calm, an emotion he’d only ever felt when near Aziraphale, and tried to soothe away his pain, physical and mental.

The angel sighed, one hand smoothing across Crowley’s scales. The lion head leaned in to nuzzle him with a rumbling purr. **“What do I do?”**

**“Just think of what happened. I’ll see it, too.”**

\--

_“Aziraphale.” Gabriel’s voice boomed across the Wall of Eden. “Guardian of the Eastern Gate.”_

_Relief flooded through the Cherub as he spun around. Help had arrived – not just Gabriel, but Michael and Uriel, too. They’d have this sorted out in no time._

_“Thank goodness you’ve come.” He bustled over eagerly, flaming sword at his side. “I’m certain now it’s just the one demon loose in the Garden. I’ve done my best to keep him away from the humans, though he’s slipped past me once or twice. Very clever, that one, but we can catch him before he does too much damage. He’s taken the form of—”_

_“It’s already too late,” Gabriel interrupted. “The damage is done.”_

_Aziraphale glanced out over the Garden, licking his lips. “No...he’s hardly had a chance...If we just—”_

_“The humans have eaten the Fruit of the Tree,” Uriel said flatly._

_“W-well...yes…”_

_“The only thing, out of the entire Garden, which was forbidden to them,” Michael continued._

_Aziraphale felt a chill unlike anything he’d experienced in his time on Earth. “B-but, surely…” He looked at Gabriel’s forbidding face and tried to smile._

_If anything, Gabriel’s expression grew colder. “They were warned. They were given explicit instructions, and they still chose to disobey. Such an astounding failure must be punished.”_

_“Ah. Yes. I see.” He caught his free hand tugging at his robes, and quickly wrapped both around the hilt of his sword, tapping the tip against the stone in front of him. Tried to hide the way his thumbs twitched. “And, ah, what, O Archangel Gabriel, what precisely is to be their punishment?”_

_Michael laid a hand on his shoulder and leaned close to murmur, “You should worry more about yourself.”_

_With one push, she forced Aziraphale to his knees. Uriel stepped up, relieving him of his sword and passing it to Gabriel._

_“Wait, wait just a moment.” Aziraphale glanced between three sets of unsympathetic eyes. “I – there must be a mistake. I’ve done everything—”_

_“Remind me,” Gabriel said, studying the sword as if he’d never seen one before. “When you were sent down here, what were your orders?”_

_“I... I was told to take care of the humans. Protect them.” He started to lean forward, but Michael jerked him back. “I was given this command – and the sword – by God Herself.”_

_“Well.” Gabriel glanced at the trees below. “God Herself is currently exiling the humans from the Garden forever. Does that sound like a success to you?”_

_“But…”_

_“I want you to know,” the Archangel continued with a hint of sadness, “that we discussed what would be a fair penalty for your utter failure. We even took a vote.” The sword in his hand set itself aflame._

_“Wh-what—” He struggled to stand, but Uriel jerked him back down._

_“You should be grateful for our mercy,” they whispered, fingers bruisingly tight. “I, for one, voted for something much harsher.”_

_“No—” His eyes were transfixed by the fire. “Please…”_

_“Aziraphale of the Eastern Gate,” Gabriel intoned, raising the sword. “You are cast from the Choir of the Cherubim, and stripped of all the powers and privileges of that rank.”_

_“Don’t do this, please…”_

_“You will be an outcast, counted the lowest among all the angels, until you redeem yourself.” The sword moved beside his head, in preparation for a swing._

_“No no no—”_

_Gabriel sighed and lowered the sword slightly. “Aziraphale, stop interrupting. We’re doing this for your own good.” He hefted it again. “Now. Your wings.”_

_Aziraphale shook his head, a tear running down his cheek._

_Gabriel rolled his eyes. “This is disgraceful. I can’t believe we ever thought you worthy of your rank. Have some dignity and take your punishment like an angel. It’s not too late for us to go with the execution, you know.” Aziraphale went very still. “Better. Now. Wings.”_

_Too terrified to disobey, he unfurled four brilliant white wings, shining in the bright sunlight._

_Michael and Uriel each grabbed one of the lower pair, pulling them taut._

_The sword flashed in Gabriel’s hand—_

_\--_

The old pain tore across Aziraphale’s wings, just for a second, but it was Crowley who cried out, flaring his own black wings, shudders running through his body.

**“Shhh. It’s alright dearest.”**

**“No, it’s not!”** Crowley’s mind was a boiling mix of hot fury and cold shame. **“If I ever see Gabriel again, I will _kill_ him! I’ll rip him apart!” **But, softer, almost lost under the rage: **“Angel...I never meant to hurt you...my Angel...I’m so sorry…”**

**“No, darling.”** He ran his hand across Crowley’s scales, still hot from the star, then buried his fingers in the feathers of the closest wing. Crowley constricted tighter, a comforting pressure across Aziraphale’s shoulders and back. **“It wasn’t your fault. Don’t even think such a thing.”**

**“But it is. I snuck into the Garden...I never thought…”**

**“No. No, Crowley, it was—”** The words _my own fault_ echoed in his mind, and he pushed them aside, hoping the demon hadn’t noticed. If he did, Crowley’s only response was to twist his tail around Aziraphale’s leg, pulling a little closer. **“It was _Gabriel’s_ fault,” **Aziraphale tried again firmly. He knew it was true. And if he said it enough times, he might start to believe it, too.

**“But...it still hurts?”**

**“Only sometimes. If I move my wings too quickly. Or strain my back shelving books.”** Or sat the wrong way. Or stood up too fast. Or twisted his head too suddenly. Or...

Crowley rubbed his face against Aziraphale’s cheek. **“It wasn’t just the wings, was it?”**

**“No…”** Aziraphale reached up and rubbed one of his heads. **“We Cherubim had a _connection._ Not as complex as this empathic link you have, or as beautiful as the starsong. But it had always been there, binding us together, until…” **He could still feel it, in his mind, where his fellow angels should be. An emptiness nothing could ever fill.

**“That bastard.”** Aziraphale had a brief flash of Crowley standing at what should have been Aziraphale’s execution – Gabriel snapping _shut your stupid mouth and die already_ – the same rage welling up in Crowley then. **“He won’t hurt you again. I won’t let him.”**

**“I know.”** For a moment, that thought was enough to buoy Aziraphale, to wipe away all the remembered pain. Until it all came crashing back. He pressed his hand to Crowley one last time, knowing he didn’t deserve such devotion.

**“What’s wrong? Angel?”**

**“I just...I’m sorry, Crowley.”**

**“For _what?_ What could you possibly—”**

**“For what comes next.”**

\--

_Aziraphale knelt on the wall, surrounded by white feathers and drops of golden blood, awkwardly trying to heal the remains of his wings with shaking fingers. He felt weak, physically and mentally, from the shock of the pain, and the sudden quiet in his mind._

_“Well. That’s one thing taken care of,” Gabriel said cheerfully, extinguishing the flaming sword. He watched Michael and Uriel dispose of the remains of Aziraphale’s wings off the Wall, then turned to give him an expectant look._

_“Oh. Ah. Th-thank you. Thank you, Gabriel, for your mercy and – and justice.”_

_“And?”_

_The sword still hung by his side. “And – and for your patience with my stupid, foolish mistakes.” Gabriel raised his eyebrows. “And – and – and, and Michael and Uriel! Thank you for, ah, for supporting me when I was t-too weak and cowardly to hold myself upright. And…” Aziraphale trembled, watching every motion of the sword. “And thank you all for giving me a chance to redeem myself. It’s more than I deserve.”_

_“It is,” Gabriel agreed. “But even our failures are part of God’s Plan, right?”_

_“Y...yes?”_

_“Exactly.” With a grin, Gabriel slapped Aziraphale’s shoulder and hauled him to his feet. The motion pulled at his wings, sending another shot of pain across his back. “Oof, this corporation’s getting a bit on the heavy side, huh? Good thing we trimmed some weight off.”_

_“I…” Aziraphale kept searching for the connection he should have to the other angels of his rank. His former rank. It was gone, an entire sense shut off. He couldn’t stop reaching for it, calling out, begging for an acknowledgement, just a moment of someone’s attention._

_He’d been on this Wall since Creation had finished, but only now did he feel truly alone._

_Gabriel snapped his fingers. “Focus, Aziraphale. This is important.”_

_“S-sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I’m always inconveniencing you, giving you trouble—”_

_“Yeah. Anyway, we’ll be back in a few days, see how you’re getting on.” He shoved the sword into the stone between them._

_“Y-you’re leaving?” Aziraphale could have screamed._

_“We don’t have time to hold your hand,” Michael pointed out dryly. “There’s quite a lot going on right now, you know.”_

_“Yes. Yes, I – I’m sorry—”_

_“If you’re sorry, you should try making fewer mistakes,” Uriel said._

_Aziraphale nodded, clenching his fists. “I...I’ll do better.”_

_“Good.” Gabriel clapped his hands and smiled. “And I suggest you work fast, too; in a day or two, we won’t be able to reattach your wings.”_

_“Yes! Of course!” Gabriel had said he could redeem himself. Be reinstated as a Cherub. Aziraphale wouldn’t have to live with this pain, with the yawning emptiness. “Whatever you want, I’ll do it. Just – just tell me how I can prove myself—”_

_The three Archangels stood in a line, preparing to depart. Gabriel glanced back in annoyance. “Isn’t it obvious? Find the demon and destroy it.”_

_Before Aziraphale could say another word, they had vanished, leaving him alone with the hole in his mind._

_The emptiness terrified him, threatened to consume him entirely._

_Aziraphale raced through the forest, sword in hand, back throbbing with pain. Every step was agony. He didn’t have a plan. He couldn’t think. His mind had room only for two thoughts._

_Find the demon._

_Destroy the demon._

_It didn’t take long._

_The dark serpent lay draped across the branches of the Forbidden Tree, scaled loops of black and red hanging down, in easy reach._

_Aziraphale gripped his sword with both hands, trying to still their trembling. The demon’s head was lost in the shade of the leaves. He –_ it _– it probably hadn’t even noticed the angel, lurking at the edge of the clearing below. Perhaps it was sleeping, or digesting a meal._

_One cut. Just there, where its middle hung low. The sword cut easily through flesh and bone. His own pain was proof of that._

_Aziraphale’s sword burst into flames._

_Just one cut. And he would have his rank. His identity. His wings. Such a great reward for a simple order._

_He took a step forward, adjusting his stance for a quick thrust from head height. He could just hold his sword above the demon’s body and let gravity do most of the work._

_The emptiness echoed in his mind._

_This was right. If he’d done this days ago, none of it would have happened. He wouldn’t have made a fool of himself in front of the Archangels, wouldn’t be a disappointment to his rank, wouldn’t be alone._

Please, God, whoever’s listening...I don’t want to be alone.

_He prepared to strike…_

_There was a noise, off to his left. Aziraphale glanced aside, and spotted the two humans, now wrapped in leaves, preparing to leave the Garden. They looked scared, holding each other’s hand, pulling close together._

_A different order rang through his mind._ Take care of the humans.

_He could do both. Destroying the demon would only take a moment._

_Of course, they were very close to the gate. What if he couldn’t find them again?_

_Better to act quickly. One cut. Maybe two, just to be safe._

_The serpent pulsed slightly as it breathed._

_He lifted the sword a little higher, and pain shot through his back, as bad as the moment Gabriel had sliced through him. Aziraphale sucked in a breath, staggering back a step._

_Very slowly, the serpent started to move, pulling its coil up into the branches. There was still time, Aziraphale could still kill the demon, or at least wound him—_

_He looked at his sword, holding back tears…_

_And turned to run after the humans._

\--

When they reached the end of the memory, Crowley gently broke off the connection and pulled away, giving them each space to process his thoughts. He circled around the angel, not quite touching, like the rings of Saturn, wings moving just enough to keep him in motion.

Eventually, he felt Aziraphale’s fingers brush his side, and opened their connection enough to allow a few words through. **“Crowley. I am...so _desperately_ sorry.”**

**“What stopped you?”**

**“The pain.”** A sad smile flitted across one face. **“I knew how much it would hurt and I – I realized...I could never cause that sort of pain. Not to any living creature.”**

**“So you gave away your weapon.”**

**“It was worthless to me. And... I knew they needed it more.”** A sigh. **“That was always what I was best at, taking care of the humans. Even if I still make mistakes.”**

Crowley continued drifting in his orbit around Aziraphale, fingers trailing along his side, under his wings, until he found something else to say. **“You’re a Principality.”**

**“Yes. After three centuries of – of carrying out my duties admirably, I was promoted. A compromise, I suppose.”** Four heads shook in synchronization. **“To be honest, I think Gabriel had forgotten about our original deal by then. He’d certainly forgotten you.”**

**“But you can never be a Cherub again.”**

This time the smile was genuine. **“Oh, Crowley. I’m happier as a Principality than I ever was as a Cherub. Principalities get to be in the world, directly supporting their charges. Cherubim are just...distant. Aloof. If I’d never been demoted, I might still be on the Wall, guarding a Tree that everyone had forgotten about.”**

**“If I hadn’t Fallen, I’d still be here. With my stars. Alone.”** He gazed across the cosmos, feeling the nebula spin and contract. Somewhere, a spark – a new star, born from the gas; he felt it in his chest. **“We’d never have met.”**

**“I’m so glad we did.”** Crowley’s head passed under Aziraphale’s hawk head, and paused while the angel reached down with his beak to scratch that spot between Crowley’s eyes. **“I’d just managed to convince myself I would always be alone, and there you were. You with your smiles and awful jokes and...you said you didn’t think I could do the wrong thing. I do believe no one else has ever had that sort of faith in me.”**

**“I meant it,”** Crowley said, but something else struck him. **“When you...let me stand under your wing. Did it hurt?”**

**“Ah. A little.”** Aziraphale reached back with his free hand, rubbing at the base of a wing-stump. The feathers there were dingy, dull. Faded, compared to his unbroken wings.

**“You could have pushed me off the Wall.”**

**“The thought occurred to me, yes. But I was...happy, talking to you. I wanted to make it last longer, that’s why I offered you my wing.”** The lion head lowered, rough tongue stroking Crowley as he passed under it. **“I knew I was likely trading a lifetime of pain for a few minutes’ conversation but...I never regretted it.”**

**“Never?”** Crowley pulled just enough away to meet the eyes of Aziraphale’s human face, leaving his tail wrapped around the angel. **“Even when we fought? Even when you caught me cheating at coin flips?”** He leaned in closer, then shot out his tongue to brush Aziraphale’s nose. **“Even when I drive ninety in the middle of London?”**

Aziraphale laughed, a gloriously strange sound that rippled through all four heads, voices blending together. Their connection opened up, and the laughter flooded through Crowley, warming him from the inside out in a way that bathing in a star never could.

But when he stopped, Aziraphale’s jaw was clenched and tears hung in his eyes. **“Oh, Crowley. I am truly, truly sorry. I swear I will find some way to – to make it up to you.”**

**“What the Heaven are you talking about?”**

The confusion that swept across him was almost funny. **“I tried to _kill_ you, Crowley. Surely you must see...a betrayal of that magnitude…”**

**“You can’t betray someone you don’t know.”** Aziraphale’s mind was a morass of pain and guilt, but Crowley could see something warm and soft emerging in the heart of it all: hope. **“Earlier tonight, I said...you didn’t know what kind of loss I’d suffered. I was wrong. In every possible way.”** It was easier to say these things here, through the empathic link, in a rolling wave of emotion and images, words little more than an afterthought. **“If someone had told me, back when I Fell, that I could have everything back if I just killed some random angel, _of course_ I’d have tried it. Probably _more_ than once. But you…” **Crowley rested his forehead against Aziraphale’s. **“My bullshit got you hurt, and a few hours later…”**

He shared the memory of that storm, as it had always seemed to him. Standing under the wing of the kindest, most beautiful being he’d ever met. Their small talk had amounted to little more than discussing their favorite things in the Garden, yet he’d been enraptured by the way Aziraphale described sunlight reflecting off water or the scent of wildflowers. For the first time, Crowley had begun to believe there was beauty on Earth, that he could be happy away from his stars.

**“Oh. Oh, Crowley…”**

**“So, yeah. No apology needed.”**

Crowley started to pull away, but Aziraphale reached out, catching his face, stroking it with trembling fingers. **“Is that...is that truly how you feel…?”**

**“Well. At first.”** He started to share another memory, this one of sitting dejected in a tavern in Rome, ready to give up on humanity entirely, only to be interrupted by Aziraphale’s irrepressible smile. How Aziraphale’s convenient appearance almost every day for the next few weeks had pulled him out of a dark depression.

But Aziraphale’s memory rolled over him first: the same tavern, and Aziraphale sitting alone, always alone, very nearly convinced _something_ must be wrong with him. But there, at the bar, Crowley, and even as Aziraphale ambushed him, stumbling his way through one social faux-pas or terrible joke after another, he stayed. He listened. He _willingly_ followed Aziraphale to dinner. And as the angel sought him out again, day after day, Crowley always seemed _glad_ to see him.

More memories flashed between them, faster and faster. Hunkered down in a tent in armor, their battle canceled on account of rain, instead deciding the fate of the kingdom with a game of chess – which neither of them knew how to play. Sitting on the edge of a fountain in Florence, sharing a bottle of wine, until Aziraphale tried to drink it all himself, and Crowley tried to steal it back, and they both wound up falling into the water. Standing in the crowd, watching Hamlet ramble through his lines; it had taken six weeks of miracles, publicity, and a small fire at a neighboring venue to build this crowd, but the smile on Aziraphale’s face made it worth every second. Chained up in the Bastille, certain he was mere moments from Gabriel’s wrath, and then Crowley arrived to make everything better. A ball in London, Aziraphale in a gorgeous dove-grey dress, Crowley wishing that angels could dance. A club a hundred years later, Crowley in that awful red shirt and heels, Aziraphale wishing that demons had never heard of dancing, yet adamantly refusing to leave while Crowley was enjoying himself. A thousand days at parks and cafes and the British Museum, a thousand nights at the shop, ordinary times made extraordinary by a smile, a laugh, a kind word. Whispering phrases with six thousand years of hidden history, and others with no meaning at all.

And woven through it all, so many emotions: joy, hope, sorrow, excitement, disappointment, desire, nervous anticipation, unwavering devotion – culminating here, now, seeing this moment through each other’s eyes.

**“Oh. Oh, my dearest...I’d hoped but...I had no idea…”**

**“I wanted to tell you, but...I didn’t even know what I wanted to say.”**

**“I understand.”** Aziraphale’s fingers brushed down his back. **“I think I understand everything now. So many happy memories...So much warmth...Oh, Crowley.”**

**“It’s all yours.”** He coiled around Aziraphale, until he could feel the movement of every muscle, the rhythm of his breath, the beat of his heart, and rested his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. **“Everything I’ve got. Everything I am. You deserve all of it. My Angel. My wonderful Angel.”**

They stayed like that, lost in the moment, basking in each other’s warmth, listening to the music of the universe, and a new music, one that emanated from themselves, a perfect beautiful harmony.

**“Well, dearest,”** Aziraphale murmured after a while. **“What shall we do next? Tour of the nebula? Favorite black holes? Maybe go see that Alpha Centauri you’re always talking about?”**

**“Sounds nice,”** Crowley agreed. **“But right now...what I want...more than anything...is to hold your hand.”**

**“Ah.”** Aziraphale’s rush of pleasure made Crowley absolutely giddy, even as his fingers scratched that wonderful spot near Crowley’s eyes again. **“I would like that as well.”**

**“Only, y’know. No hands.”**

Aziraphale smiled, a small laugh rippling from his mind to Crowley’s. **“We can return to the shop, if you like. But you never even got to visit your stars.”**

**“They’ll be here.”** He reared up to glare over Aziraphale’s heads at the nebula. **“Oi, you lot hear me? I gotta go take care of my Angel, but I’ll be back. So no sloppy fusion, or uncalled-for sunspots, because I _will_ be checking!”**

Aziraphale chuckled, hand now running back between two of Crowley’s wings. **“I heard that. Do you expect to bully them like your plants?”**

**“I hope not. No star of mine’s gonna shrink and cower at the first sign of trouble. Threaten them, they’ll glow better just to spite you.”**

**“Sounds like they take after you,”** Aziraphale said as Crowley wound around his shoulders again. The angel sighed, taking one last look around. **“It really is lovely here.”**

**“Yeah.”** Crowley rubbed his snout against Aziraphale’s human cheek, then rested his head between Aziraphale’s bull horns. **“But it’s time to go home.”**

The stars began to rise around them, blurring past. Crowley had the sensation of falling, but laying there, surrounding and surrounded by his angel, he didn’t feel afraid.

\--

Aziraphale landed them gently back in the shop, everything precisely as it had been when they’d left. Hardly a minute had passed on Earth.

He still held both of Crowley’s hands, but they stood closer now, bodies pressed together, his head resting against Crowley’s chest, tucked under his chin.

“Well,” he started. “That was...an interesting journey.”

“Mmmh.” Crowley leaned down, his cheek brushing Aziraphale’s forehead.

Turning his palms, Aziraphale laced the fingers of first one hand, then the other, through Crowley’s. “Is this what you wanted?”

“Mmm-hmmm.” Now Crowley’s nose was tickling through Aziraphale’s curls, his lips finding their way to the angel’s brow, sending a thrill right through him.

“Why don’t I go...get us a bottle of wine? We can sit on the sofa and talk, or...or not talk…”

“Mmm-mmm.”

“Darling, you need to use your mouth to speak here, I can’t…” There _was_ something, tickling at the back of his mind, a vague sense of peace that wasn’t Aziraphale’s. He took half a step back, blinking up at Crowley. “I...how are you still…?”

“Now that the connection’s made, I can keep it alive, even on Earth. S’not as strong in this body, though.” For a second, he looked worried. “Unless you _want_ me to break it?”

“No, I didn’t say that.” Aziraphale squeezed his hands reassuringly. All their time in the nebula, Crowley’s thoughts had buzzed around the edges of the emptiness in Aziraphale’s mind. Now they seemed to be settling into a spot of their own, making themselves at home. “I can’t sense much, though.”

“Just takes practice.” Crowley bent down, pressed his forehead to Aziraphale’s, and for a moment he could feel, well, _quite_ a bit more. It made his heart race. “You can learn to share more, or less. Might even get it to where we can sense each other when we aren’t touching.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale let go with one hand, looping his arm around Crowley’s neck to pull him just a little closer. “You assume I plan to ever stop touching you.”

“Ngk.” Crowley slid his free arm around Aziraphale’s waist, rubbed the thumb of his other hand across Aziraphale’s knuckles. “Anything you want.”

“Anything?” They were so close now their noses kept brushing.

“Mmmmh.” His hand shifted up Aziraphale’s back to rest between his shoulders; Crowley’s palm grew warm, and he started to rub the heel of his hand hard into the muscle.

Aziraphale gasped. The pain was so familiar he hadn’t even noticed it, the strain on his back when he reached up. But as Crowley massaged his muscles, he felt something begin to loosen.

“Better?” Crowley asked, face still so close that his breath tickled Aziraphale’s lips. “Or worse?”

“Better. Much, much better.”

“Good.” Was it his imagination, or could Aziraphale _feel_ Crowley’s smile grow? “I see a back rub in your future.”

“Oh, yes. I would like that, very much.”

“Mmmh.” The hand fell still. “But first...I think I’m going to kiss you.” Another brush of his nose. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

It was the gentlest brush of lips, the smallest pressure, but it sent fire racing through Aziraphale from head to toe. When Crowley started to pull away, Aziraphale pulled his demon back down for another kiss, then another and another…

Eventually they parted with a sigh. “So, ah,” Crowley mumbled. “That’s a yes on kissing?”

“Oh, my dear.” Aziraphale still had his eyes shut. “You taste like the stars.”

A chuckle ran across his cheek. “Do you even know what stars taste like?”

“Yes.” He pulled Crowley down for one more kiss. “They taste like that.”

“Can’t argue with that logic.”

“You carry them with you,” Aziraphale mused, running a finger through Crowley’s hair. “Warm. Brilliant. Unwavering. Occasionally explosive.”

Aziraphale caught a glimpse of Crowley’s grin before he buried his face against the angel’s shoulder. “Nk. Mfrg.” From the bubble of emotions through their connection, Aziraphale could _feel_ Crowley struggling to put what he felt into words. “I, uh. M’glad you’re here.”

“Yes dear,” he nodded, understanding completely. “And I always will be.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Huge thanks to Larkwolf (Larkaidikalikani) for the amazing artwork that inspired this fic.
> 
> Also thanks to everyone in the Do-It-With-Style server for the support throughout the process, and the Hapax for the beta read! I'd like to note that there are at least 3 other "True Form" artworks in this event, each of which contributed something to my ideas for the fic. Definitely go check them out, too!
> 
> Finally, thanks to all my readers! If you enjoyed this, please leave us a comment below. :) (And if you see anything that should have been tagged, let us know and we'll add it!)


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